Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2011

[thesisko]

You seem to be reading here an awful lot into Nathaniels comments.

 

Nathaniel plainly said that he (and by extension PC gamers) wouldn't be interested in playing a game like PS:T if they had Skyrim readily available. Since Skyrim (based on Bethesda's track record), likely won't hold a candle to PS:T in terms of narrative, writing and C&C, I can only assume that Nathaniel thinks that the strongest selling point of any game, no matter it's audience, is "AAA" production values.

[Walsingham]

You seem to be reading here an awful lot into Nathaniels comments.

 

Nathaniel plainly said that he (and by extension PC gamers) wouldn't be interested in playing a game like PS:T if they had Skyrim readily available. Since Skyrim (based on Bethesda's track record), likely won't hold a candle to PS:T in terms of narrative, writing and C&C, I can only assume that Nathaniel thinks that the strongest selling point of any game, no matter it's audience, is "AAA" production values.

 

I would be very cautious about rejecting that notion. AAA production may not govern purchase. But it governs that top dollar release price. And that is worth aiming at. If you want to deliver storyline heavy content, my guess would be to aim at doing so in DLC subsequent to release. Risks are lower.

[thesisko]

I would be very cautious about rejecting that notion. AAA production may not govern purchase. But it governs that top dollar release price. And that is worth aiming at. If you want to deliver storyline heavy content, my guess would be to aim at doing so in DLC subsequent to release. Risks are lower.

 

Again you are assuming I mean that the graphics should look like utter crap. Other niche games sell at full price (which in the case of digital-only releases is around 30$).

Using recent examples from other genres, I'm talking about games like Civilization V, Heroes VI, ARMA, DCS-A10C and most games published by Paradox. Clearly not AAA productions but neither are they budget releases.

 

The "won't pay full price for non-AAA"-argument only holds if the "AAA"-games offer nearly the same experience, not for unique niches. No one is going to say "I won't pay top dollars for ARMA because CoD has higher production values". "AAA" is required for mainstream games because visuals is the only way to market the game to non-fans. I respect that Obsidian isn't interested in going after a niche market, but there's nothing wrong with doing so and many other developers are successful at it.

Edited October 8, 2011 by thesisko

[Walsingham]

I did assume that. But not because I think you're a moron.

 

The key here is that whenever I look at game reveiws there's a _very_ harsh assessment of graphics. You are either in that top 3%, graphically speaking, or you get canned.

 

Now, I could easily be wrong. I don't own a top flight graphics processor and personally I couldn't care less about the graphics. But the bulk of game buyers are not enlightened. They go with the "94%!" on the box.

 

i still think that this could be directly addressed if there was some numerical method of rating game complexity/realism. Nerds love numbers.

[thesisko]

MotB as modestly profitable but by no means made the kind of money that would get a publisher excited.

Mask of the Betrayer exceeded sales projections; if Storm of Zehir is also well received, that would create a strong argument for a third expansion.

 

In 2008, Obsidian states that the RoI on MotB is good enough that they believe that a similar RoI for SoZ creates a strong case for another similar project.

In 2011, Obsidian states that the RoI on MotB wouldn't get any publisher interested. Should I conclude from this that RoI expectations has risen sharply during the past 3 years?

[thesisko]

I guess Chapman's views weren't representative of the whole company seeing as Project Eternity is announced for PC and not iPad. Good thing, otherwise I'd be pledging $0 instead of $280.

[C2B]

Kickstarter changed the whole situation from last year. So, that's not really fair.

[thesisko]

Kickstarter is a funding platform, a way to raise money for projects that aren't interesting to publishers.

 

It's got nothing to do with actually believing that PC gamers aren't interested in old-school RPG's and that tablets are a much better fit for that type of game, since tablet customers have "lower expectations".

 

In this thread Chapman continued to insist that gamers didn't want old-school RPG's on the PC. He even said that he wouldn't be interested in a new Planescape:Torment type game on PC, 'cause he'd rather play Skyrim.

 

It's curious then, that Obsidian is pitching this as "the ultimate PC RPG made by legendary designers" and not "low-budget game that isn't remotely as good as Skyrim or Mass Effect but you might want to play it on your iPad if you have nothing better to do and don't mind reading a lot of text 'cause the budget wasn't enough for full voice acting and cinematics."

Edited September 15, 2012 by thesisko

[thesisko]

Guess I really should not be surprised considering how much wallowing in "PC RPG's are dead and we'll NEVER, EVER have a game like BG/IWD/PST/FO/NWN2 again!" there's been from most people the past few years.

 

It would be really nice if people wouldn't be so quick to swallow the marketing crap from publishers about genre X or Y is outdated or how it has "moved on" or that gamers "demand" voice acting, or that the "rising costs of development" has forced them to streamline/dumb down sequels.

 

I can't remember how many times I tried to make these points but always someone would insisted that "no, no it's true, modern gamers only want RPG's like Mass Effect now!".

Edited September 15, 2012 by thesisko

[Lady Evenstar]

I understand that I'm no longer part of your target audience ...

 

Thank you so much for proving me wrong! I couldn't be more thrilled about Project Eternity and will happily consume a hearty portion of humble pie. :D

[sfg]

Also, yes a larger problem with IWD was that it was tuned for people familiar with AD&D. I was there for the entire QA process. There were fights that Kihan Pak and I breezed through on the first try that infuriated and completely blocked testers. Let me repeat that: there were professional game testers whose job it was to play AD&D CRPGs who were completely blocked by fights in the original IWD, unable to proceed. In contrast, other testers and some developers (notably Kihan and I) had little to no difficulty with these same encounters.

 

I'm curios, why is it such a big problem? The game has a manual that can familiarize players with everything needed to know how to play. Who/what are those "professional game testers"? What backgrounds do they have?

I find the game too easy anyway, without the need to know much of D&D, but how would fix this problem? Better documentation? Or just make it even easier so each and every game tester can "breeze through it"? Would that make it less tuned to people familiar with AD&D?

 

Or when do you think a game is "good" from this perspective? At what category of players do you stop?

Edited June 14, 2013 by sfg

[thesisko]

I never mentioned indie/artsy games. Paradox almost exclusively makes $30 PC games, none of them are indie/artsy and there's certainly nothing like them on iPad for $2. The most recent PC games similar to BG2 (DA:O, Drakensang, MotB/SoZ) were also neither indie nor artsy.

 

Glad to see more of my predictions coming true. And funny in retrospect how utterly wrong Nathaniel Chapman was in this thread.

Edited March 19, 2014 by thesisko

[Hassat Hunter]

Look what I saw at GDC Europe:

 

Well, there's my proof. I'm not human.

If anyone ever doubts I am a different species from you people entirely, I can now show this picture.

 

I obviously disagree. I long prefer AP, DX and even ME1 system above 'modern' games. It fits stealth games, to have to sneak, aim and then pull the trigger. And then the enemy dies easily.

Instead 'modern' games have cover (horrible), enemies are bulletspunges to compensate dead accuracy (bad), and since controllers are often used, hitzones are neutralised for 'if you hit, max damage' (bad). And if that's not bad enough, MORE bosses! With more bulletspunginess.

That's your modern shooter for you. And I loathe it, really really hate it.

 

The only thing wrong with AP and shotguns (which are SHOTGUNS, not SNIPER RIFLES) is that you can only have one primary weapon, and most levels are build large and widely.

It would be better if you could have another weapon for ranges, then switch to shotguns up close isntead if you pick shotguns, that's what you got.

 

But that has nothing to do with the aiming mechanic, which I love. Not to confuse with Vampire Bloodlines random spray even when aiming though.

In Deus Ex, when you buy a skill rank, the change is instantly noticeable because the granularity is so large. You have 5 ranks and so each rank can afford to be a massive, obvious improvement to players.

True. It's a good system.

Sadly, again, "modern" gaming wrings it's little neck by instead of being fine with 15 levels over 30 hours, they now need to stuff 50 levels in 20 hours to appease some kind of constant reinforcements something.

And the higher leveling in the end hurts more than it adds to the game.

 

I'm glad PoE doesn't follow suit...

That feature certainly don't have place in modern game design.

Yup, modern games are all about covers, regenerating, instant reinforcements, allowing the player to see all the content and making failure not an option.

Maybe modern game design has no place in modern life. If so, let it please come sooner than later.

[WorstUsernameEver]

Jesus Christ.

[Hassat Hunter]

I may not be human apparently, but I wouldn't go that far

[WorstUsernameEver]

Mostly I'm just flabbergasted about how this dead topic was resurrected.

[Longknife]

I expect the Grim Reaper himself to arrive here shortly to file a police report about the corpse that was recently stolen from him, this thread is so old...